I was reborn as a maid to the cruel tyrant prince!!

Chapter 3/4: mini chapter- prelude to arc 4 + author notes

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Sitting upon a vanity in a dimly lit room that evening, sat a young 12 year old girl with long red wavy hair in a rather lavish purple coloured nightdress. The girl brushed her hair, despite it being in such a condition where it probably wouldn't need to. She appeared to be deep in thought to herself, almost gloomy at what she was thinking about. However her nonchalant daydreaming would come to a shut as the door behind her from within her room opened up very quietly. The girl looked back over to her door as someone stepped inside.

"Hello your lady ship! Sorry for being late, I wound up getting distracted whilst I was out..." came a soft spoken voice from this person. The person who revealed themselves to the girl, appeared to be a familiar face from the shopping district, one who had help in choosing a special gift earlier that day.
"Oh, Marcello welcome back! Today was your day off right?" The girl asked as the boy now known as Marcello nodded in response. "It was pretty boring without you here today you know? I wound up having to talk to the maids and they are boring..." the girl tutted twizzling a lock of her hair in her fingers with a pout.
"Is that so? Did they speak about anything interesting...?" Marcello gave a small awkward laugh in response. The girl's lip upturned a little as she looked back over to the mirror which revealed her rather unsatisfied hazel eyes looking down.
"Apparently there's rumours that I'm being avoided by that person... and that recently there may be someone they are more interested in..." the girl responded with a haughty sigh to herself. "I think they are just rumours though, I don't think theres anyone who would turn me down, right Marcello? There surely isn't anyone better than me for them to choose! " The girl then brought up in a rather sulky matter as Marcello seemed a little disheartened upon hearing this. Before he gave a small accepting smile to himself as he nodded.
"I agree my lady, they clearly don't have any taste..." he nodded, the girl not responded to this as she continued to pout to herself. Marcello gave a strained sigh to himself before he then decided it would be best to bring up his trump card.

"If it makes you feel any better my lady, I got you something today!" He pointed out, the girls ears perking up a little to this... Marcello raised up the purple orchids that he had gotten from the shopping district- the girls eyes lighting up upon seeing them... when she then got up to go recieve them.
"Waah- these are really pretty Marcello, my favourite colour! You didn't have to!" The girl chimed with joy at the gift she had gotten as Marcello blushed looked to his left. He hadn't seen her look this innocently happy in a while.
"Actually I got some help choosing these, apparently they have a good meaning behind them!" He brought up, the girls eyes shimmering more to this news.
"Really?" She questioned as Marcello nodded, gesturing with his hand as he spoke.
"Apparently they are meant to be lucky... in stuff like romance and the likes..." he explained, as he got a little shy as he went in.  He took a deep breath as he then emphasised his next statement. "This was for congratulations..." however his emphasis stopped mid way for a brief hesitation.  He looked back down as he spoke on . "For your soon to engagement that is... It's meant to be lucky for weddings..."

The girl seemed a little surprised to hear this at first... before she then looked back down to the orchids, a small smile coming over her face. 
"Thank you Marcello, I love them!" She told him in a sincere manner, the boy flustering up again.
"N-No no, I just wanted to see you cheer up my lady... afterall there had been some trouble in regards to that hasn't there?" He stammered his thoughts all over the place as the girl took the orchids back to her vanity. 
"Well he can only run away for so long... afterall this is something our parents choose for us..." she stated, sitting back on her chair as Marcello's head drooped a little.
"Yes, you're right my lady..." he mentioned as the girl looked back to the mirror, her eyes glancing up to an image she had stuck upon there.  She took a moment to ponder on it, before she then the feisty pout returned to her face.
"Maybe it's worth my time trying to take matters into my own hands..." she stated as her hand traced the picture of the person she would marry once she had come of age. "I wonder when you'll notice me, Prince Dante..." she uttered to herself...

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AUTHORS NOTES:  (feel free to skip ahead if you aren't interested >w>)

Hi there! RHGoddess here!  I hope you are having an amazing day today! Fun fact, as I am writing this it's my birthday so wheeee.

So I don't often make authors notes... or sub chapters for that matter. But I needed to do both now, so here we are!

Main reason for the authors notes is for the chapter in question- this was meant to be at the end of the last chapter.  I was half awake last night and completely forgot to add it in!  However I thought it was unfair for people who had already read the last chapter if I suddenly added this in after they had finished.  So I decided the best course of action was to make a sub chapter, that way everyone would be notified and they wouldn't miss this important prelude to the next arc. 

I guess as we are here  that I'd like to go over a few things people may miss if they don't follow my public statuses or follow me! 

So I guess I'll start off with asking how people feel about chapter lengths so far?  I know that recent chapters have been a bit longer than usual.  I've had positive responses to these sorts of chapters in the past, I think I more or less just wanted to check with you guys now to be sure.  The long chapters aren't going to a norm- I usually keep my word count between 6000 to 8000 words tops- but there are times this goes over and I struggle to find a natural split point for them.  I hope this isn't too bothersome for you guys! When I can I will split up chapters in better chunks, though if there is ever a chapter you feel like may be too much to sit through just let me know.

With that out the way, I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has read TP so far- even with some of the hiatuses I have take for uni work and health reasons this past year.  As some of you know I am an animation student so deadlines can be pretty work heavy- especially now I am in third year.  And this past year has certainly been- a thing... I at least hope TP was able to make some of you smile, despite the chaotic state the world is in right now!  I am happy to let you know that even in my hiatuses I am still working on updates, it just ends up being a little slower than usual!  As of right now I have about 7 chapters in the works for TP so there's plenty more to come.   I'n still blown away that we are near 10k reads as of me posting this- it happened in the space of a few months from the 5k we hit- I hadn't even finished making the 5k special art I was making before we hit 7k lmao. I'm very humbled and honoured that people actually enjoy my work. Despite being a little bit of a wattpad vet on my main account, I've never had quite such an active support for one of my works before and believe me when I tell you it makes me stupidly happy to see people comment and read. I'm a bit of a shy person, but I'll definitely do my best to get round to replying to everyone now my hiatus is over (for the moment anyway- I will let you know when my next intense deadline comes up)

I have some other fun things to share with you guys over the next few months.  Little animated bits I am testing with, official arts as well as a fanart section that I'll be posting soon- I'm just waiting on the permission of one more artist!  I want to make an official artbook for all the refs and concepts for this book so far,  I think it'll be nice to share the process with you all!   I also may be uploading one of my main account books on here at some point- or rather the second draft so stay tuned for that too if you are interested in seeing more of my work!

I think I'll end this off here!  If people like I may do author note updates more often if people like to hear from me more? 
I have an author twitter as well as an art one- RHGoddess on twitter and Doubleotakupower for my art acc! 

The next arc is fun one! I hope you will all enjoy it, I'm excited to introduce some new characters in the mix, as well as developing current ones even more >w>  Also a reminder to peeps who may forget, if you like my work, then I'll appreciate any upvotes you can give. I'm not like centric and continue to work regardless, but it's a great non vocal way of showing your support if you don't want to comment 🥺

Thanks for reading!  Updates will be coming soon!

~RHGoddess